Remembering Adam, Always

I Googled "28" today. It's a number, just a number. The number between 27 and 29, which, I suppose, makes it somewhat unique.

On the 28th of every month for the last year and a half, I have more often than not thought little about it, at least at first. An ordinary number, an ordinary day, even though, a year and a half ago, just after I had licked the last remnants of nachos off my fingers and given up on the thin film of airy bubbles resting on the bottom of my pina colada glass, just before I was about to settle in for a poolside nap before my next snack, the 28th became anything but ordinary. 28. A number just after 27, the age my friend's son had just turned only a few weeks earlier. A number just before 29, the age my friend's son would never reach. She told me by text that he had died, apologizing but noting there was really no good way to tell me.

Adam would have been 28 now. That is not something I ever thought I would say, all those years ago, when my friend and I spent seemingly endless hours watching our kids play, wishing away the time, some days, so we could feed them dinner and clean up their messes and bathe them and finally relax. When we would call each other for support or advice or just to complain, or, more often than not, to laugh about something one of the kids had said. When we would fill lazy days away from our offices with idyllic trips to museums or the Planetarium or the zoo or just the neighborhood park, lazy days that sometimes made work days seem a welcome respite. Years later, when we visited colleges together, worried together about where they would end up, arranged a celebration for them, together, when they graduated from high school, I would not have believed that Adam would never be 28.

Our plans for this 28th of July have been undecided until yesterday. We will meet, five of us and my friend, at Adam's grave. We will bring our own chairs; my friend will bring the coffees and the treats. We will share memories, we might laugh, we might cry. There's no playbook for visiting the grave of your friend's child, the one who referred to you as his other mom. Or one of his other moms. There is certainly no playbook for my friend's mother, still processing -- without much success -- the loss of her grandson, and her own daughter's pain.

My friend claims that we are the ones who have held her up, helped her make it to this 28th of July, a year and a half later. That day, 18 months ago, when everything went horribly wrong, everything became blurred. I somehow packed my bags and flew back to Chicago and made myself "present" for my friend, and for everybody else caught up in this most surreal fog. I remember very little, except for every word of that text.

The fog has lifted, for the most part, but not one of us has yet to fully accept that Adam died. I have visited his grave before, but still, the reality of it all eludes me. Today, as six theoretically intelligent and strong women gather for coffee around Adam's grave, as the six of us babble incessantly and no more or less incoherently than we usually do, I will think about Adam, rolling his eyes. If he could tell us how ridiculous we look, he would. If he could set us straight, he would. But he will let us do our thing, and he will know how much he is missed.

Small Victories, on the Streets Where We Live

I held on to my 86 year old mother with something just short of a bone crushing death grip as we made our way through Times Square the other day. A roiling sea of people moved in every direction, and I was far more concerned that my mom, still recovering from a broken hip, would be felled by by an errant elbow or, maybe, a baby stroller than I was with the kind of dime store terrorism that has come into fashion.

The concrete blocks that rose up at regular intervals on the sidewalk seemed more of a nuisance than a precaution. To many, they were nothing more than a good place to sit (though I would bet the sitters were actually undercover cops). Broadway had been closed to traffic for a few blocks, with New York's finest lining the intersections in an obvious show of, if not force, at least presence. It took me longer than it should have to realize that this wasn't simply an ordinary urban pleasantry -- a pedestrian mall for the weekend. This is "us," now, always following closely at the heels of the latest threat. Liquids pass with ease through airline security now that ordinary cars have become weapons.

Our foray into the Times Square subway station was even more death defying. It had nothing to do with the fear of becoming a sitting duck in an underground tunnel stinking of urine on the off chance some lunatic decided to blow things up that day. I was too busy wrapping my body around my tiny mother -- centimeters behind her so she wouldn't notice -- as she insisted on navigating the maze of stairs and ramps without holding on to me. Kind of the opposite of teaching a child to ride a bike -- I was pretending to let go but hanging on for dear life.

My mother, in her own special (and infuriating) way, is doing what everyone else was doing in Times Square the other day, and in places people tend to go all around the civilized world. She is determined to live life as she always has, to not let a little broken bone or some surgery stand in her way. She is not thinking about terrorists; she is living life, on her terms. Her bucket list may seem uninspiring to some, but to her,  a day at the theatre, a walk through Times Square, a crowded subway ride, and dinner with her children is like shooting for the stars.

The thought of the car plowing through a crowd in Times Square only weeks earlier floated through my mind briefly. Not "terrorism," they said, but I think we can all agree it wasn't a random act of kindness either. Still, as I held on to my mother and did my best to keep her safe, I marveled at the sheer number of people out to simply enjoy a beautiful summer afternoon in New York. Small battles won by all of us, every day.

The Big Easy Going

A handful of us had found shelter under a long wooden overhang that allowed for precious few dry spots between the drips. A man walked by, enjoying a brief respite from the downpour. "If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes," he reassured us. We waited ten. The rain came down even harder, though that hadn't really seemed possible.

There are lots of things to love about New Orleans. Passersby always say hello, and astonishingly well-behaved dogs walk by without even bothering to sneak a sniff. One gentleman under the overhang offered to share his umbrella. Another offered to buy me a coffee. I was content to wait it out, enjoy Mother Nature's show for a while. Anyway, in New Orleans, you're never too far from a warm and cozy place to take a load off. In this case, in fact, only about six inches.

Another love-worthy thing about New Orleans -- the mouth-watering Wifi passwords. Croissant. Strawberry. They even tell you what it is immediately, no need to beg. A virtual warm welcome, topping off the sweet aromas that manage to sustain my feelings of hunger no matter how many meals I eat here. The rain stopped long before I finished my snack; I was dry and sated, just in time for lunch with my daughter.

Though my wanderings through New Orleans have taken me past a fair mix of mansions and shanties, I know there are broken down sections that somehow escape the eye of an average, self-indulgent tourist like me. Still, there is an aura here, a content-to-be-alive kind of aura, where endless hours of porch sitting on a brutally hot day seem downright productive and fulfilling. Even the alligators in the bayou appeared to have a keen appreciation for just being, gliding peacefully through the muck as we humans winced at the stinging rain drops and the roar of our airboat's motor.

This morning, before I head back north to a reality of harsh self-judgment and unrealistic goal-setting and days of pointless referenda on the inadequacy of my existence, my daughter and I will tour an old cemetery and cap it off with some beignets. A mix of inspiring epitaphs of lives well lived and a delectable reminder of how to do just that.

Rollin' Down the River

It's like selling an ice cube to an Inuit, I think, taking money from hapless Northerners for a "swamp tour" somewhere near New Orleans in late June. But suckers are born every minute, and my visits to NOLA are winding down as my youngest child approaches her final year in college. Somehow a boat ride through mosquito and alligator infested sludge made it to her bucket list.

As if reptilian predators flashing toothy grins as they zealously guard their turf is something unusual these days. Yawn. At least these alligators are just doing what nature intended them to do. I yearn for the days when the bucket list was filled with more wondrous things, like restaurants and art galleries, when I could simply enjoy the cuisine rather than "be" it. 

Assuming I survive (more on that, hopefully, in a later post), I will miss my visits to New Orleans. A place where, if I close my eyes, I could swear Matthew McConnaughy is the guy chatting only inches away from me on the sidewalk. A place where gaudy strands of beads adorn fences and trees, and where there always seems to be a parade, even when you are not at risk of being hit by, say, a large cabbage being flung by a drunken reveler on a float. A place where I always get some sort of life lesson from my taxi drivers, and sometimes even emerge with a receipt and a doggy bag filled with homemade Cajun treats. A place where "Taco Tuesday" is a  thing -- a serious thing. 

Mostly, I realize, it's not about missing New Orleans, though it is certainly one of the more exotic destinations in the continental U.S. This is my last year of college visits, those happy jaunts that began, for me, ten years ago. D.C. and N.Y.C. offer their own special charms and perils, just as NOLA does, but each college visit conjures up sweet memories of visits long ago. I am reminded, always, of that four years in each of my children's lives that seems to pass in a blink. My mixed feelings of pride and relief and loss and a healthy dose of abject fear triggered by their imminent official launch from the nest. Their independence and competence is nothing new by this point. It's just, suddenly, very real. 

As we cruise through the swamp this afternoon, I will be on high alert, as I have been for so many years, confident that I can keep my daughter safe, even overpower an alligator if I have to. I will swat away mosquitoes and stare down toothy reptiles, and I will start to wonder who will protect her when we are no longer drifting alongside each other, in the same boat. 

Suddenly, Missing Seymour

When the time came to order a stone for my father's grave, my mother, brother, and I struggled to come up with a word to engrave into the top. Everything he meant to each of us, boiled down to a single word. It was a daunting task.

My father, Seymour, had lots of nicknames: Sim, Sy, or, as I liked to think of it, Sigh. But the cemetery -- where my poor selfless father had recently embarked on an eternity in the company of my mother's relatives -- seemed to demand something more formal, more dignified than a nickname. FATHER. MOTHER. SISTER. BROTHER. HUSBAND. On rows of tombstones, so impersonal and so limiting, futile attempts at capturing the essence of a person.

We settled on DADDY. He was a devoted husband, a devoted uncle and cousin, a devoted friend. When he died at the age of 78, he had been a father for only half of his life. But "daddy" was who he was meant to be -- our provider, our caretaker, our protector. When I was little, I feared losing him more than I feared losing anyone. Years later, when he got sick and I had three children of my own whom I loved more than life itself, I couldn't imagine a world without him. When he died, I felt as if I had been cut off at the knees. 

My mother, the widow, had her brand of grief, and she was the one whose daily life would change dramatically. My brother and I grieved for her as much as we grieved for ourselves, and we, at least, took comfort in each other, the two children, similarly situated, similarly stricken. 

It's been nineteen years, and I am long past the days when I would burst into tears, as my ex-husband put it, every time I caught sight of an older Jewish man. I don't even consciously think of him most of the time, but somehow he remains with me, on ordinary days, and especially on days when I need a boost. I can still hear his strong, soothing voice. Whenever I pass the corner of 49th and 2nd in Manhattan, I can still remember the relief I always felt when I spotted his car, during that rough spot when I was in my early twenties and he would endure more rush hour traffic than he should have after a long day just to pick me up after work. I can still remember how everything always seemed a bit more right when he was there. 

Nineteen years, and it occurred to me today that my brother and I each have our own bank of "daddy" memories, some shared, but many not. This morning, my brother shared a favorite story in honor or Father's Day -- something about a seat from the old Yankee stadium and a few cartons of cigarettes and a special journey for a father and a son. I know the stadium relic well, but I never knew the details of how it ended up in my brother's bedroom. My father, my most adored "daddy," had somehow managed to be as unique a figure in somebody else's life as he had always been in my own. 

I am not a good sharer, and I am a little competitive. I console myself with the hope that my brother knows as little of my car rides home from work with our father as I know of their Yankee Stadium seat adventure. He can cherish his own memories, just as I cherish mine, vague snippets that have embedded themselves in my psyche, my heart, my soul. 

At the beginning, I used to dread what I called "Fatherless Day." Today, I celebrate Daddy, who has never left me. Or any of us who loved him. 

We've Come a Long Way, Baby. Sorta.

We are well into the twenty-first century, and misogyny is alive and well in the Capitol. My teenaged self would never have thunk it.

Walking along Avenue J in Brooklyn last week, I half expected to see the bus driver with the tight red curls coming up behind me to make the turn onto Bedford Avenue. Every day, for three years, it was his blue city bus that picked us up on a busy street corner a few blocks from my house to transport us to high school.The blue had seemed shiny and new, back then, compared to the old green ones. The driver seemed so young and kind, back then, though he never smiled — never even seemed to recognize us. It struck me that was his way of being invisible. I wasn't sure of too many things, back then, but I was pretty sure I didn't want to drive a bus when I grew up.

Those were the early days of Title IX. By the time I got to high school, I had just as much right to participate in a varsity sport as my brother did. Elite private universities, which had long felt compelled to admit women, still often relegated them to distinct women's colleges that did not even bear the hallowed name. Together but separate, equal but only to a point. I refused to attend any such school, on principle. My mother always worked (in addition to having her hair and nails done and having doors opened for her by my father and having dinner ready for all of us at six), so I came upon my "one from column A/one from column B" version of feminism honestly. It never occurred to me that there was something I could not do -- or at least attempt to do. I also knew, deep down, it wasn't a bad thing to be treated like a queen.

When I return to Brooklyn, I marvel at how little has changed, at least on the surface. The old ladies sitting outside brick apartment buildings on folding chairs on their concrete beach. Housewives wheeling metal grocery carts down rutted sidewalks. The mixed aromas of ethnic foods. Horns blaring, double parked cars holding their ground. On a Friday, as it was this time, Orthodox Jews scurrying about, the storm before the calm of Shabbat.

It remains a land of mom and pop stores with dusty wooden floors and narrow aisles and shelves packed with apartment-sized miniature versions of things. Not a Starbucks or a Crate and Barrel or a gourmet grocery chain in sight. Window displays are functional, not pretty. Still, if you’ve ever tasted a kugel, the haphazard rows of bulky trays makes you salivate. The city buses are still cumbersome and noisy, and still blue.

I walk by my old high school, a venerable place, across the street from Brooklyn College, another venerable place (although I would never have actually enrolled there; that was beneath those of us with grander dreams). The college campus captivates me now. It is green, it is open, it is pretty, just like any campus. A moving mosaic of ethnicity criss-crosses the paths cutting through the manicured lawn. It strikes me as a haven of opportunity. Why had I never noticed that before? Maybe the bus driver with the red curly hair would have given anything to go there. I see young women and young men, all convinced they are destined for greatness. Indeed, some are.

So many years later, we take all our equality and, more importantly, our dignity for granted. Yet, so many years later, if you are a woman in the Senate and you challenge one of the old white guys, you are reprimanded. You are reminded that you are primarily there to be seen but not heard. With so much left to fight for, we appear to be backsliding. So many years later, a bumpy ride on the big blue bus.

Excess Baggage

I'm glad United Airlines has been working hard to rectify its image issues. I can once again approach my gate confident I won't be forcibly dragged out of my seat -- not only because of the bad optics but because nobody of any consequence would be willing to sit in the middle seat in Row 26.

It's the latest idea in airport indignity -- if you search on line for the cheapest ticket, you had better read the fine print. The print is so fine, in fact, that United takes it upon itself to cover its aft section and send you several emails after your purchase is completed, "reminding" you, in case you missed it, that you must pretty much board without carrying anything more than a change of underwear and a lipstick.

I fear we are only a year or two away from seats on the wing unless you pay a surcharge. I decided this made no sense (what does, these days?) and I also decided that a purse and a tiny bag that, together, would fit under the seat in front of me, would be acceptable, since I wouldn't presumably complying with the spirit of the new rule, not taking up valuable overhead bin space. I'm a short Jewish woman; diminished leg room is a small price to pay.

Apparently, though, this has nothing to do with spirit; it's about zero tolerance (and, I suspect, a bit of humiliation for the basic economy folks now relegated to the airborne equivalent of steerage, forced to sport a scarlet "Group 5." The moment I clicked on the "no bags to check" option on my laptop, I got the message in red (albeit tiny) print. I  would have to actually interact with a United ticket agent if I thought I was going to sneak through with some extra stuff. Seriously. The self service ticket dispensing machine at the airport was equally vigilant. I, along with several fellow passengers, awaited assistance from the one agent unlucky enough to be spending the day responding to bright yellow alerts on the self service screens.

Damn it. He was well trained. He knew immediately the pale green straps from my backpack were not decorative edging on my white sleeveless blouse. You'll have to check one of those bags, he told me, unable to deny that the two of them would easily fit under the seat in front of me, with extra room for a small child. He reminded me of the seventeen post -purchase emails I received informing me of the new indignity I mean rule. Shame, shame.

I assured him I could combine them -- knowing full well I couldn't -- but he let it slide. He warned me about how serious they would be about all this at the gate. I took my chances. The guy at the gate barely glanced at my ticket, much less my bizarre attempt to fit a large square purse in a small round tote.

Crazy world.